


You and I, We Hold

by Rednaelo



Category: The Transformers (IDW Generation One), Transformers - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Eventual Smut, Heavy BDSM, M/M, Not Beta Read, POV Alternating, POV Second Person, Sexual Tension
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-01-19
Updated: 2015-03-11
Packaged: 2018-03-08 05:19:24
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 11,578
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3196823
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rednaelo/pseuds/Rednaelo
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>You’re going to go back to your habsuite and stay awake, replaying the comfortable fold of his fingers overlapping one another around his glass. You’re going to remember how you feel about hands like his.  And you’re going to wonder for nine straight cycles if you are making things up or if old memories are beginning to infect you.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This fic is...a little different and probably not going to be very long and will most likely be done in short bursts. It's also a gift for the very talented [Herzspalter](http://herzspalter.tumblr.com/) who essentially taught me that this pairing exists and belongs in the smuthouse along with all of the other bots I have crammed in here.
> 
> To Herz, I say thank you so much for your artwork because it's excellently inspiring. I've been meaning to write something like this for a while and your tenacity when it comes to this pairing fuels my muse so well! I really hope you like it. I'll try to be expedient about putting the chapters out.
> 
> Thanks so much.

Megatron

There’s an old cliché about hands that you know and you’re berating yourself for thinking of because you’re turning into one those old fogey bots who thinks in clichés and rambles off to the younger generations about, ‘Back in my day, we had to scavenge all the way to the next city to get the energon we needed. Under Council custom’s checks and border patrols.  No altmode.  Uphill.  Both ways.’  _Senile_ old fogey bot, you.  It’s probably not very helpful that most of your processor seems to be sunk at the bottom of a tankard.  Oh sure, you can hold the glass just fine and carry on conversations with the psy-ops specialist without slurring a single word or ejecting non-sequitur streams of data out of your vocalizer…. 

You’re rather entranced by Rung’s hands.  That’s how you know.

_His hands tell me everything_.

You’re going to put down the tankard of engex and not bother dipping your fingers in it to fish around for your brain module. You’re going to go back to your habsuite and manually put yourself into recharge timed for three-cycles bursts.  You’ll do three of them, onlining each time between to fill your tanks with good, filtered ration-grade.

Before that, you’re going to tell Rung goodnight.  It’s a good thing to do; he will appreciate the courtesy.

“Goodnight, Doctor,” you tell him, inclining your helm as you stand and transfer the funds to cover your tab. 

He smiles at you with the sort of serenity that only comes from forgiveness. You have hurt countless numbers of sparks and souls in your lifetime.  Rung is absolutely included.  You will never have the means to make amends for any of your crimes.  This one mech has already forgiven you.

“Goodnight, Megatron.”

You’re going to go back to your habsuite and stay awake, replaying the comfortable fold of his fingers overlapping one another around his glass. You’re going to remember how you feel about hands like his.  And you’re going to wonder for nine straight cycles if you are making things up or if old memories are beginning to infect you. 

You’re going to decide to stop drinking.  And you’re going to put this all behind you.

* * *

 Rung

He smiles at you from behind his hands when you tell him you’re honored that he trusts you.  This is the sort of smile that you know he’s keeping hidden because it’s the one he has defaulted to for many years; this isn’t a “smile.”  His optics maintain a practiced stillness that once held back a might of a fire. The smile that goes under it is something cruel.  Or so he thinks.

You’re quirking a grin back at him.  He doesn’t scare you.  You’ve faced down more present dangers than Megatron sitting very calmly, quite visibly serene in your office.  His sessions with you may be court-mandated but he has not been at all bitter about it. He genuinely seeks change, this much you know.  You also know that he hasn’t the faintest concept of what sort of change he wants.  But that’s why you’re here.

“I do trust you,” he affirms.  His hands fall away from his face.  “Sensible to trust one who wouldn’t dare violate that.”

“You say because it is my job?” you ask him.  He shakes his helm, turning to face the window and watch the stars drift idly by.

“There have been too many who forsake their ‘jobs’ to suit their own needs.  I incited an entire revolution that was essentially built on anti-functionist sympathies, if you’ll recall.  A mech’s professional courtesies and sworn oaths don’t amount to much.”  You watch the ghost of his reflection in the window pane grin in a quiet, tired way.  “No, I trust you because I’ve heard about how even with a laser cannon cradling your helm in its barrel, you would not impart confidential patient information.” 

You laugh and he smirks at you and there’s some little surge of glee in your spark – a strange thrill – that you get at having the staunch approval of mech who was once the menace of your entire race.

“I take my work very seriously,” you say simply.

“Indeed.”

He relaxes again, reaches for the cube he’s been sipping on for the past hour or so.  The session has been over for several kliks now.  Megatron is a punctual sort, as well.  Not one to linger.

You wait for him. You know very well how to wait for others; the silence is almost meditative with its subtle buzz of anticipation. You fold your hands in your lap and watch as he follows the movement.  It’s the sudden shift of his features that clues you in. You lace your fingers together and he frowns at them, something bright stirring in his optics.  A small ember returning to its home….

He stands. You stand too, measuring the thinness of the smile he gives you as he nods.  He does this instead of shaking your hand.  He has always done this instead of shaking your hand, you suddenly realize.

“Thank you for the drink, Doctor,” he says, dispersing the containment field of the cube in his hand.  “Until next time.”

“Until next time,” you agree.

You think you’ll mention something about your observations when next time comes around.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Starting off pretty fast but don't get your hopes up; I'm notoriously bad at updating regularly. I'm going to *try* to bang out a chapter every day or every other day but I am making no promises. Until then, enjoy some G-rated physicality. Thanks everyone for your support!
> 
> -Bec

Megatron

“Do you mind?” he asks and you offer your servo to him because no, you don’t.  Rung’s hands are significantly smaller than yours.  He cradles your left hand in both of his with the sort of diligent esteem that you suspect has been practiced on the many ship models that fill this office.  His thumb smooths over a scratch on your palm.  He focuses on what he holds.  You do not let anything he does go unnoticed.

“I have a microsolder if you would like me to patch this up,” he tells you.

You laugh, a quick chuckle that he grins at sheepishly.  He knows why you find the idea funny.  Just like he knows that you’ve been eyeing his hands.  It’s why he’s touching you this way: he’s letting you look your fill.  Allowing you a chance to gain the answers to questions you don’t feel like fencing just yet.

You do venture one question.

“A doctor you may be, but you’re no medic,” you begin by saying.  “The scars on my hands are old.  Not worth repairing.  Why this?”

He smiles.  It’s so serene and safe beneath the lenses of his spec-lenses.

“To be honest, I try to maintain some respective method of physical reassurance with many of my patients,” he informs you.  Both of his hands wrap around the curl of your fingers.  “There have been excellent studies to show how touch is key to helping things like recovery from trauma, expediting many aspects of personal growth, and giving further assurance of value to the individual who receives the touch.”

“This is for my benefit, is what you’re saying.”

“It might very well be,” he says, looking up to smile at you with that placid grin.  “Do you feel comforted? Reassured? Does this bother you?”

You curl your fingers inward.  His grip tightens minutely and he stares straight into your eyes.  Unafraid.

“And if I said it did?” you ask him.  Your voice rumbles low in your chest.

“Then I would refrain,” he answers plainly.

“Everything is just that simple.”

“It is,” he says.  You haven’t let him go.  He isn’t making any gestures that he is going to release you either.  “The idea of ‘want’ is very simple.  Either you want something or you do not. I want to help you however I can. I want to make sure you’re comfortable. I want to respect whatever boundaries you lay for me.”  He pauses, and his shoulders sink a little, relaxing as he ventilates.  “I also want you to tell me what _you_ want.”

“I want absolution,” you tell him in an audacious instant. And you say it because you know it’s the one thing you will never achieve.  Ever.  But he asked.  You’re rather sure he didn’t stipulate that you tell him what you want only if you could attain it.  He doesn’t seem at all surprised either. You were expecting that.

“What else?” he asks gently.  His knees are bumping into yours.

This time you take a moment to think.  You consider his features as you ponder.

“Companionship.”  Another lofty request.  A might more realistic, though, you think.  “And I mean of another who isn’t groveling or backstabbing or afraid of me.”

“Healthy relationships are a good goal,” he tells you.  It’s an affirmation; he rubs his fingers against your palm as he says it.  “Is there anyone you have in mind?”

“Not particularly.  Most of the people on this ship either hate me or vex me.”

Rung gives a little laugh and shakes his helm, probably reflecting on his own experiences aboard the _Lost Light_.  You’ve heard the stories.

“Still, I think it would be a beneficial venture for you: seeking a communicative relationship among one of the crew.  You might begin considering your options.”

“And you, Doctor? Might I include you in my options?”   You smirk at him.  It has yet to make him flinch or visibly wary in the slightest.  He smiles right back and you feel the gentle entreaty of his field against yours.  It holds quiet, unassuming hands out to you, open and gentle and unwavering.  Hands that possess as sort of strength that isn’t all physical but will break you the minute you ask for it. The jagged thought of, ‘ _I might want to ask,_ ’plunges through you from processor to spark, spreading through your lines like a surge.

You wonder what he would answer.

“I would like to be included,” he says.

You pour your energies towards his in a steady stream.  It’s a deliberate exchange, like the one weapon forgers perform as they spill molten metal from crucible to mold in the hopes that it will become something wield-worthy.  You are willing to melt yourself down and fit to his mold.  You think you can trust him to temper you into something that will challenge you without compromising your spark’s integrity.

_How willing are you to shape me…._

“It won’t do much to expand your horizons, though,” he says cheerfully. “You’d get a lot of, ‘You’re only friends because it’s his job.’”

“Ah, but we both know better than that, don’t we?” you say, giving his hands a little squeeze.

He nods.

“We do, indeed.”


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Look at me updating every day. I'm baffling even myself. Uh. More of the same; I like steady buildup. Enjoy?
> 
> -Bec

Rung

You’re quite positive that you will never catch him off guard.  He has spent a whole lifetime preparing for every possible outcome.  He may seem intrigued when you say something he might not have been predicting, but he is learning you quickly.  Soon you will be another inevitable constant in his life.

The thought simultaneously comforts and bothers you.

On the night that the _Lost Light_ touches down on Eleutherios for a three day restock/refuel/relax interim, you avoid the disembarking droves and make your way to the rec room on the third deck. This particular rec room is unique among the others on board because it has both an energon dispenser and a supply closet that hasn’t been completely ravaged yet.  If you root around, you’re pretty sure you can find a blank datapad.  And then you can curl up in the giant porthole at the back of the room and fill your datapad with all the notes you’ve been making but not recording.  These thoughts necessitate a separate place to reside than your main tablet.  They’re not the most professional; sometimes when you turn them over in your processor you do double-takes and footnote yourself with something like _I did not intend to sound like I was waxing poetic just then._

Megatron has found the comfortable nook you planned on taking refuge in.  You blink in surprise when you find him there, but then smile when you notice the energon stick between his lips and how he’s tucked in the porthole like he’s just any other soldier looking for a spot where no one will bother him.  He turns his face to you and watches with that expressionless vigilance as you approach.

“I apologize if I disturbed your quiet,” you say politely.  “I will not be long.”

You stretch your hand towards him once you are near enough.  Without breaking face or even pausing to react, he reaches right back, his palm turned upward.  You settle your hand into the curve of his palm; he enfolds your fingers with his own and then the second clicks by and you both withdraw.  He’s smiling now.

“You disturbed nothing.  Stay, if you wish.”  He swallows the last bit of the energon stick and asks if you won’t be joining the shoreside party as you divert to the supply closet.  You still want to find that datapad you came for in the first place.

“Not this evening,” you say, peering into boxes and rearranging them to make a path for yourself.  “The crew prefers to run amok on the first night we land.  I was caught in that tide once.”  You pause for a moment, looking up at the ceiling as if it will reference the night in question for you plainly.  “I rather like the peace of the empty ship.”

“We stand on common ground, then.”

You find a datapad tucked away behind a sheaf of old maps and dust it off.  This will do nicely.  You glance up at Megatron as you exit the supply closet.  You suppose your plans on transcribing all of these built-up musings will have to wait for another occasion.  Or you should just relocate. Strangely, you don’t have much motivation for securing a different venue at the moment.  Perhaps not so strangely.

Megatron holds out his little box of goodies to you and you take one, thanking him, as you pull up a stool and sit nearby.  It’s strange to you that the stars are so still.  You mull over how complacent you’ve grown to being on the wayward voyager that is your home and company now. You also consider how all things end.  And surely you will not have your home in the _Lost Light_ forever. 

 _And what about this?_  

You turn your optics towards Megatron and find him pondering the planet below, it’s swath of violet lights and billowing pillars of smoke, fires blazing from faraway. You can’t tell what he’s thinking.  But you wait patiently and if he decides to tell you, he will.  Until then, you power on your new – dusty still, there’s a crack in the corner of the screen – datapad and begin preliminary encryption measures.  Your field very docilely settles like a mantle around you and you decide that there’s no point in delaying what your original plans simply because you are in his presence.

You wonder if he can tell that you’re writing about him.

You nibble on the little stick while you begin putting the glyphs down. You may have intended to leave as soon as you got what you came for.  But Megatron isn’t rebuffing your company.  The two of you sit in gentle silence while you fill the space with the taps of your digits against the screen you cradle in your hand.  You can feel the nearby but confined energy of your captain’s field as he pays you no mind.  He contemplates; you catch the edges of his thoughts as they ebb and flow in depth and intensity.  It becomes a sort of backbeat to your work as you write.

 _The one difference between us,_ you tap idly with a single hand, _is that I know he trusts me and he assumes that I will never trust him._

You blink a little as a cube of energon enters your line of sight.  You take it as soon as it registers that it’s for you.

“Thank you,” you murmur and sip from it immediately.  It slipped your mind to pick one up before you sat down.  And then you got complacent.  You look up at Megatron when you hear him chuckling under his breath. 

“Your work must be quite engrossing.”

“Terribly,” you admit, smiling up at him.  “Really, thank you for this, I needed it.”

He takes a seat at the sill again sliding another goody from its box.  He faces you directly now, optics attentive.  Now’s as good a time as any.  Especially since his focus seems to have you as its keystone.

“Would you mind joining me and a few others on an excursion in the city tomorrow?” you ask him.  His energon stick pauses on its way to his mouth.  You blink.  You’ve done something he hadn’t been expecting.  You find yourself grinning and it helps remind him not to just sit there with his lips open.

“What happened to preferring the quiet of an empty ship?” he asks.

“It doesn’t negate the fact that I’m still curious to explore,” you tell him.  “That and Rewind invited me.  He and Chromedome are companionable enough, if a little adventurous at times.”  You grin into your cube before taking another drink.  “I’m extending the invitation to you.”

“Is it yours to extend?”  His question is so deliberately pointed you almost roll your eyes.

“Of course it is.”

“Despite the fact that my company is in all likelihood unwelcome?”

“I’m welcoming you,” you say resolutely.  He studies you.  “And if they do not, then you are still welcome with me.”

“Won’t that displace you from your friends?”

“Your habit of planning on preconceived inevitabilities will ultimately limit you,” you tell him and you can see how you’ve sliced through the one vulnerability in his armor with that one remark.  He blinks at you.  Then that pleasant smirk unfurls across his lips: the one that you are growing rather fond of but you are willing to bet has been a death knell for many a mech.

“Well put, Doctor.”

“Rung,” you say.

“Oh, are you not currently putting my behavior beneath the scalpel of your scrutiny, _Doctor_?”

You make a quiet gesture about you with the hand that holds your cube.

“This is not my office.  I don’t make it a habit of practicing outside those walls, particularly not with my friends.”

“So you’re saying that I could take your well-intentioned “friendly” advice and tell you to shove it up your aft?”

You snort clumsily into your cube and end up splashing yourself.

“My question is, would you?” you ask as you wipe energon off your chin.  There’s a potent pause and then Megatron throws his helm back and bursts into laughter.

“Rung, you are nothing short of excellent,” he says as his venting evens out.  Your field floats about you buoyantly as you smile behind your cube.

“I’m pleased you think so.”

He reaches out towards you again and you put down your datapad in favor of letting him take your hand.  Only he doesn’t take your hand, he grasps you gently by the elbow and tugs you closer towards him, leaning into your space. You can feel the hum of his field, resonant with the echoes of his delight.

“You got energon on your cheek,” he tells you, thumbing it off and then releasing you.

“Oh….  Thank you.”   You pull your spectacles from your face and rub at your optics a little, distracted.  And when you hear him sigh – a forceful sort of exhale, more like a statement than the absence of one – you glance back up.  Megatron leans against the curve of the porthole and frowns at you thoughtfully.

“I can’t get a read on you,” he says, disappointed.  Probably frustrated.

“What are you having trouble understanding?” you ask him. You put your cube down and slide off your stool.  You take a seat next to him on the sill, even though the fit’s a little tight.  You’re pretty sure that move did nothing to abate his confusion; it says so clearly in the shape of his optic ridges and the set of his lips.

“No one just spends their time with me because I am pleasant company,” he says, challenging you with his optics to just contradict him.  But you won’t because you know that’s not the end.  Also because rebuking his words would not prove him wrong, but prove you a fool.  “I am a murderer.  I am a genocidal tyrant. I have no mercy, no compassion.  I do not function as anything but a spearhead for war and in this time of peace, captive to my own fate, I am made commander because even Optimus Prime understands that my singular use is for might.  I am no one’s _friend._

“While you are the singular mech among this crew that knows of my desire for companionship and I have already expressed that I do not dislike you, I am continually eluded by the reasons as to why you would bother attempting to establish a relationship with me.”  Megatron paused, optics narrowing a little as a bitter smile emerged.  “No, actually, I’ve considered possibilities such as blackmail and some sort of misguided personal amusement but those are in direct conflict with everything else I know about you.”

You giggle at that, shaking your helm a little.

“Enlighten me,” he invites you. 

You give a subtle smirk of your own and slide your specs back in place before standing.  Your hand reaches out and you put it on Megatron’s shoulder, squeezing just a little.

“There’s more that is worth knowing.” Your answer is simple and cryptic and no doubt infuriating in one way or another.  Your fingers stroke against his plating as you pull your hand away and move to collect your things.  “I’m not entirely sure how you view me, Megatron.  But I would like to know you.  And some things you cannot know unless you make yourself known as well.”

You turn around and give him a congenial smile and he looks at you like your paint spontaneously changed from orange to pink.

“That’s the basis for friendship,” you tell him with a little huff of laughter.  “Desire for intimacy has to be a two-way street. That said…about my invitation for tomorrow?”

He blinks once and though his eyes are still piercing bright, his face relaxes just enough for you to see the daredevil that is enthused by your challenge.

“I accept,” he says.  You grin.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Starting to get a little more interesting. Also I used this opportunity to shamelessly shoehorn mine and Sasha's TFOCs in because it's my story so I can, haha. No, seriously, though, I enjoyed writing this and I hope you enjoy reading it! Thank you for your continued support; all your comments make me so happy!
> 
> -Bec

Megatron

“He’s good by me,” Rewind says, loudly enough for all of the mechs nearby who are trying to pretend they aren’t paying avid attention.  Everyone within the immediate vicinity seems to have contracted an ailment that suddenly invalidates the existence of their jaw hinge screws.  You hear someone go, “WHAT?!” somewhere a few paces behind you.  Rung is politely hiding his mouth behind his hand so no one can see him laughing but his field is tickling yours in amusement.  You nudge back at him.  Focus, Doctor….

“You’re sure?” Chromedome asks his smaller and slightly estranged Conjunx Endura.  Now, that must be an awkward and spark-breaking situation.  You think to yourself that you’re glad your only worry in this situation is being an eternal pariah among your own kin; a minor annoyance, at worst.  Rewind still edges away when Chromedome hovers.

“Yeah, I’m sure,” the minibot says.  His field stretches out to knock against yours in a decidedly friendly manner.  “C’mon, I don’t wanna loiter on the docks all day.  Let’s go!”

Rewind trots off and you give the slightest shrug to Chromedome when he lingers a moment to stare at you.  He turns and trails after his small companion.  The nearby company decides they’re done gawking, little by little, and you ignore Whirl as he squawks at you after a failed attempt to pick a fight.

“The frag, you bucket-headed slagstain, is your aft made of carbon steel?! Mother _fucker!_ ”

“Please tell me he damaged something important,” you mutter to Rung as the two of you walk away peacefully.

“I think he dented his pede when he kicked you,” Rung reports, glancing back.  You click your tongue against your dentae in disappointment.  Rung laughs behind his hand again.

Eleutherios is bustling.  The metropolitan noise and chaos encompasses and you’re having a bit of trouble deciding if you’re being swaddled or suffocated in it.  This planet was inhabited long before you were ever sparked.  You have no lasting legacy here.  It was too far from your war theater.  Cybertronians have made this planet home for centuries, though.  There is plenty to accommodate those of your race.  This is what Rewind tells you after you and Rung catch up to him at the intersection right outside the port gate.

“You like art?” Rewind asks you.  You look at him for a moment, silent, as you can’t produce and immediate answer for him. “No, wait,” Rewind says before you can make up your mind, “aesthetics aren’t and never have been something that you’ve particularly cared about or bothered to invest in.”

“Am I that easy to read?” you ask blandly.

“I probably know more about you than Rung there does,” Rewind comments.  “A good archivist knows everything about everything and everyone.”

“So does a good spy,” you say.

“Good thing I’m interested in information for its own sake and nothing else.”  The minibot points out a distant building that spears into the stars like a white thorn.  “That’s the Eleutherios Museum of Multimedia Art and our destination for today.  It’ll be a good catchup for you, Megatron.”

Rewind then looks up at Chromedome and takes his hand to lead him onward.  You catch a fading sip of their harmonizing fields as they amble off.  Rung bumps up against you in your distraction and you help him dodge a pushy alleyway peddler by shoving the mech away.  Gently, of course.

“All that snark just then,” you say, gesturing to where Rewind has gone ahead with his beau, “am I being mocked?” 

“I think he likes you,” Rung says. 

Whether his observations were intentionally malicious or not, Rewind was definitely correct in his assessment.  The museum is sharply silent in contrast to the crowd and noise out on the streets.  The energy has shifted; you are bathed in the artificial light of this quiet haven.  There are barely any people here at the entrance but you are not putting your shanix on it being desolate; this building is enormous.

You look towards the staircases at the opposite end of the room.  They lead away to hidden, high-ceilinged, white-walled somewhere.  You scowl.  You’re wondering if there’s anything to actually gain from this excursion.

“The seasonal exhibit was done by a local artist,” Rung reads softly off the pamphlet he picked up by the admission desk.  “A project entitled ‘Safe Words.’”

“And where is that located?” you ask, though you are hardly enthused. The silence in this place bears down on you.  Your voice projects….

“Ahh…there, let’s follow those two.”  Rung points out Chromedome and Rewind ahead of you.

He nudges your hand with his as you walk and you glance down at his comforting smile.

“You were a poet once,” he says.  You grimace, your whole body sagging with a sigh. 

“Let me detail for you the _fine_ benefits of all the things I ‘was once,’” you say, much to his amusement.

“Surely you have some appreciation for the arts,” he clarifies.

“You lose that which you cannot utilize when war is waging,” you say.  “What good would poetry do me when trying to hold my own against all of my enemies?”

“Everyone needs some method of unwinding,” Rung says.  You watch Rewind and Chromedome duck into a side hallway ahead.  “We had artists among our soldiers.”

“I do not doubt it.  But your soldiers were not in the unique position of being supreme commander of an army of backstabbers, egoists and lunatics. If you had free time and a need to ‘unwind,’ you found an interface partner and let off charge the old-fashioned way.”

“Ah.”

The two of you approach the threshold of the hallway; it’s separated from this corridor by a heavy, black veil.

“You made that assumption for yourself already,” you guess as you part the curtain for him.

“You hardly struck me as the abstinent sort,” he says as he passes you and you stifle a snort as his field brushes by yours, fluctuating playfully.  Like he’s waggling his eyebrows at you.

“Hardly,” you repeat under your breath with a smirk and watch Rung clasp demure hands behind his back.

If the rest of the museum is quiet, this particular room is tomblike.  Large and circular with black walls, you can’t shake the feeling that the boundary you stepped over is sacred, somehow.  A few bots linger about, standing near the images that hang on the walls.  Rung ambles over to where Chromedome and Rewind stand, still hand-in-hand.  You divert to the one photograph that has no nearby viewers.  As you near, a data packet pings you; its location origin is the photograph you’re approaching.  Curious, you open it.

An audio log beings to play.

 _“Repeat it to me,”_ a deep, resonating whisper hums into your processor.  You freeze mid-step.  Your lines go cold with fire; your optics are widening.  This voice isn’t familiar but its intent is like the scars on your own hands.

 _“Bismuth,”_ a second voice breathes, rapturous. 

_“Good.  You’re ready now.”_

_“Yes, Master….”_

This photo is black and white.  Its composition is simple: one mech stands at a desk with his back turned.  Another sits at the first mech’s pedes, leaning against his legs and looking straight at you.  Those optics are dimmed and docile, the features composing serenity.  But this is an expression of untouched might.  This is a face worn by those who are powerful because they know no harm will befall them. 

You trace the strong pair of legs the mech rests against and though the frame cuts off everything above the hips, you know for a fact the entire reason for that gaze piercing softly through you is because of this sentinel.  He is knight to the weary prince at his feet, who reposes and reclines and challenges anyone who sees.

You feel as if your fuel lines have severed at key junctures and have bled into your internal machinery.  The title under the frame is ‘Bismuth.’

The name of this exhibit catches up with you and you feel like quite the fool.

 _“Song…bird…,”_ the dizzy rasp of an unknown mech lilts through your thoughts as you venture the next photograph.  You stare at the image of a large rotormech cradling a sleeping minibot and listen as a crooning voice hushes about your audials in stereo.

_“It’s alright…. It’s okay, I got you, sweetling.”_

The first voice whimpers and chokes back sobs.

The rotormech gazes down at his minibot lover as if the one in his arms is the source of all starlight.  Your fingers press into your palms; you rub at them restlessly.

“I knew ‘im.”

You’re startled by a sudden voice behind you though you manage to avoid visibly flinching.  Of all people, Trailcutter is standing behind you, smiling wistfully at the photograph you’ve been engrossed in.  You blink slowly.  When in the world did he get here?  Was he following you or had he already been here?  You have no idea and you give up the futile pursuit of trying to reason the answer.

“The ‘copter,” he continues.  You know he’s not really being loud but Trailcutter’s voice feels tremendous.  “We were drinkin’ buds.”

“Mmh,” you hum, almost mutely.  You turn away, pretending to lose interest in him so maybe he’ll think you actually have.

“Knew him better ‘n I knew his Conjunx there, but the minibot….  Woulda never thought to see ‘im like this.  Glitchy little monster, that one. Ex-Con, ta boot.”

You blink back at Trailcutter, interest piqued.

“That bot was a Decepticon,” you repeat, gesturing to the minibot.

“Sure was.  Mean little guy, too, Rivet.  Soon as t’bust your kneecaps as he was t’fix ‘em back up.”

“A medic?” you ask, surprised.

“Mmhmm.  Like I said, tetchy sort.  But Crossfire there loved him to pieces; wouldn’t ever shut up about him.  It was stupid-cute.  Pretty sure he was loved right back.  Rivet snapped at everyone, yeah, but it was like his acid rain turned to high grade springs when X was around.  He’d ride on X’s shoulder’s sometimes, I saw.  Then kick anyone in th’face who cooed at him.”

“You speak from personal experience?” you ask, smirking.

“Yep!” Trailcutter laughs.  “Love musta lasted. I mean, look’a that.”

You’re looking.  You’re not suited to judge things like love but you can recognize devotion – loyalty – in an instant.  That’s what you see here.  The distinction that Trailcutter drew was clear enough.  If the minibot was an ex-Decepticon, the rotormech – being Trailcutter’s friend – was most likely an Autobot.  And yet, for whatever reason, he cherishes that belligerent medic.  You have never seen such adoring optics in your life.

You leave Trailcutter to fawn over the captured and publicized intimacies of his friend and move on.

‘T28’ features a femme standing profile to a sun-spilling window while her partner sleeps on the berth beside her.  You heard him curse and spit the safeword out, the two of the vent hard at each other, and then her laughter as he told her to do it again, just as hard.

One by one, you go around the room and invite yourself to steal secrets from these strangers’ lives.  And with each one you pass, there is something unsettling within you.  You keep thinking about your most recent days, about innocuous touches of greeting, about traded smiles and small hands.  Demure hands clasped quietly behind slender hips and careful fingers folded around a half-empty glass of engex….  Most of you is begging a question that you’ll stamp down and keep silent for as long as your pride will let you.

You bury your own thoughts.

At ‘Aperture,’ you encounter Rung once again and stand a modest distance from him as you willingly let another audio file invade you.

“I should have expected to find something like this here,” Rung says quietly.  You catch each word as clearly as the ones that slip through your processor.

“Mmh,” you answer.  Eloquent today, you.  In all honesty, you’re not at ease speaking with Rung at this moment.  He isn’t aware of that, though, and you are loathe to admit to it.  You push the subject elsewhere.  “Chromedome and Rewind?”

“Still about,” he says.  “I’m not keeping diligent track of them, however.  These pieces are no doubt quite…inspirational.”

You chuckle and shake your head a little.

“The photos themselves aren’t extraordinarily evocative,” you pull out a critic’s façade though you and he and everyone who even remotely knows you are not fooled for an instant.  “Coupled with the sound clips, their effect is entirely different.”

“You’re right,” Rung agrees.  “The intimacy is twofold, almost….”

You wonder to yourself what sort of artist has the trustworthiness that all of these mechs in their most private pursuits would offer him glimpses to share with anyone willing to pay admission price.

“This one is my favorite,” Rung says to you.  He touches your hand and moves away to another photograph.  You follow him.

The audio file for ‘Impactor’ queues and you open it as you go to stand with Rung.

 _“You never say it,”_ a quietly curious mech murmurs to you.

 _“I’ve never needed to.  You take good care of me.”_  

_“And if I cross the boundary?”_

_“Then I will bring you back.  I will take care of you.”_

You open your optics – you closed them at some point – and gaze at the photograph of the two mechs.  The slighter mech sits in the lap of the larger one. They both face you.  The larger mech’s eyes are closed, their helm down, most of their face hidden.  The slighter one eyes you curiously, his hands reaching up and behind himself to wrap around his partner’s neck.  You feel like you’ve seen ancient statuaries of foreign planets, their gods, posed this way. 

“I understand,” you say.  You’ve lost your volume; your words are only whispers.  Your spark is thrumming unnaturally hot inside your chestplates.  You can feel it in your fingertips.  It pulses in your helm.

Rung turns his face towards you and for a split second you fear that you cannot meet his gaze. 

You know precisely why.


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> See, I told you not to trust in my rapid updating; it was all a fluke! Seriously, though, past two weeks have been me recovering from surgery and then I had my birthday so things got bumped back. Also, writing this chapter was really difficult because tone shifts are a lil tricky. I have 10+ pages of text that didn't make it. But I think what I got now works for what's happening. Things are starting to get exciting! I hope you enjoy!
> 
> -Bec

Rung

Megatron doesn’t even hesitate.  His hand turns over where it has been resting on the tabletop and he stretches it gently towards you.  His fingers curl a little, beckoning. Your hand fits in his quite comfortably; you indulge yourself a little by slipping your fingers against his palm instead of just placing them there.  You trace over weld scars and scratches, articulations of joint segments. Large fingers fold over yours and there's an amused bump against your field from him.  You smile and bump back.

“Aw, that wasn’t funny at all,” Tailgate says before sullenly sipping from his curly straw.

“Shoulda picked something more humiliating, pipsqueak,” Whirl tells him.

“I’m pretty sure those two do that with each other all the time.  One of those ‘positive reinforcement’ things?” you hear Swerve not-so-subtly mutter to Skids, who lowers his stein and has high-grade on his nose.

“’s nice,” Skids says to his knees.

Megatron flicks the holodial in the middle of the table and it lands on Rodimus who looks like he was just selected to sacrifice his internal machinery to the Decepticon cause.  You snigger behind your unoccupied hand and settle your back against the booth once again.  When you relax, your arm brushes Megatron’s.

“Well?” the old warlord says to his co-captain.

“Dare,” Rodimus snaps, because he’s an idiot to be reckoned with.  Offside, Skids and Swerve go, ‘Oooooh….’

“I dare you to only take Truths for the rest of the game,” Megatron says.  And though Rodimus’ shoulders ease and he peers at your friend like he managed to totally dupe him, the beginnings of his relief fade when he catches half the table’s occupants giving him evil smiles.

“Frag….”

“This was the best idea ever,” Rewind snickers, his camera glinting as it focuses.

Rodimus nudges the holodial and Megatron takes your glass from in front of you to steal another sip of engex.

“I could buy you your own if you like,” you say to him while Rodimus throws a pointedly dirty Truth question at Chromedome.

Megatron’s grin curves his lips, quiet optics containing his amusement as he passes the glass back to you.

You were worried for a time.  After you left the “Safe Words” exhibit, Megatron had drawn his field in tightly around himself and wouldn’t keep pace with the rest of you.  He trailed behind your small company in silence, taking steps that were measured like the paces of a mech who knew to walk forward but not where to go.  Quite some time had passed before you realized that you lost him. Distracted by your conversation with Rewind, you didn’t even notice when he quitted your group entirely.  But when you did realize, you let Rewind go on ahead with Chromedome and took up your own mission.

It took some crowd-weaving and dodging around street vendors and even a couple of foreign evangelists to even pick up a visual of him.  Luckily for you, Megatron is rather easy to get a visual on in general. 

Of all things, you found him taking careful bites out of an iced sweetsphere, sitting offside while a brood of sparklings chittered and squealed, playing in the nearby fountain.  One of them was tucked on the bench next to him, holding a similar sweetsphere.  In those tiny servos, the ice treat was comically enormous – though the one Megatron held didn’t even fill the cup of his palm.

“Who is your friend?” you asked Megatron as you approached.  The fountain spluttered and the sparklings shrieked in laughter as they ran from the jets.  That tiny face near Megatron’s elbow turned up to you, soft yellow optics blinking curiously, meshy cheeks smeared with sweet melted ice.

“This is Lightstrike,” Megatron introduced you to the sparkling.  “He bent his finial while playing.”

You sat at Megatron’s pedes and watched the little ones tumble about until Lightstrike had devoured the entirety of that sweet and toddled away with his guardians.  And then you walked together back to the _Lost Light_. 

When your hand nudged his gently as you meandered through the thinning crowds and the late red sun, he halted in the middle of the street.

Megatron’s optics burned darker than the setting star.  You waited for him with your hands by your side.

“Are you aware of what you’re doing?” he asked you.  Like a bystander at a bomb-diffusing.  Like a gambler clutching his last shanix before a risky bet.

“Lucidly,” you said.  You did not let the reassurance seep into your vocalizer like you wanted.  You did not wrap that familiar, comfortable persona of the Counselor and Comforter about your shoulders.  Such a thing wasn’t appropriate for the moment.  Perhaps the situation itself wasn’t appropriate at all, all things considered.  But you put aside propriety for the hungry look in his eyes as his field reached towards you.

 Pedestrians bumped and jostled you a little, making you tip and lurch in the crowd but you were held there by the determined grasp of his energies.  They anchored you, pushing and probing and waiting to find the spot where you would laugh in his face or break beneath his might.  Red optics loomed over you as he drew closer and you watched the fear begin to fade, its millennia-hardened mask slipping away into your hands.

“I’m trusting you,” he murmured, as if he almost couldn’t believe it.

And then he took your hand.  Much the way he’s holding it at this very moment.

* * *

What’s the best way to begin?  You wonder this to yourself as he takes a seat on your berth and watches: the predator at rest.  Nothing you do, no movement you make, goes unnoticed.  Gracious, though, it’s been so long since you’ve had to consider things like this.  You furrow your brow and he snorts at you, amused.

“Perhaps coming here right this moment was more impulsive than properly planned,” you muttered and he laughs aloud.

“I wouldn’t doubt that,” he says.  “I was under the impression we had things to discuss.”

“Ah.  Right, right, absolute communication.”  You nod.  You take a seat at the desk.  You get up again and turn your chair to face him and then take a seat once more.  He raises an optic ridge at you.

“Is something wrong?” he asks.

You allow yourself to laugh at your own scattered thoughts and give him a shrug.

“Thinking of you has me dithering,” you admit, and you have just the audacity to think you caught him off guard with that one.  He blinks at you.  A smirk turns up the corner of his mouth and you keep back the smitten sigh you want to let out.  And then you exaggeratedly let it out anyway and his smile just beams.  He turns his helm to hide it from you.

“Frag you, Rung,” he says as he stifles his laughter and shakes his head.

You’re smiling and so is he and you think to yourself that this is exactly why you’re here, why you both are.  You pull your chair a little closer to him; his field radiates with the bright charge of a lightning jag.

_Tell me what you need._

Your processor is begging the question inside you and you can feel it grip your spark and surge through your limbs like an impulse to reach towards him.  Optics meet optics and you’re reminiscing on those brief days when you had control and you knew it.  Thinking about how you’re about to have it handed to you once again: all you have to do is ask.  You’re rather sure the bounty is waiting to be poured into your longing fingers

He tilts his helm, puzzling over you, and you can only assume that you’re thinking the question so hard that you’re projecting it to him.  Because then he says,

“I don’t think I have a limit.  I tried to find one for quite a while but there’s essentially nothing I won’t do.”

 _Everything_ , he’s telling you.

You raise your eyebrows to muffle the smirk that wants to slide out.  You have your doubts.  It is not in your nature to wander blind with your hands out in front of you; you want to know where the walls are.

“Surely you haven’t tried everything,” you say.

“Oh, I doubt it,” he chuckles.  “I want to know how you would handle me.”

He holds his hand out, palm up, towards you.  You reach, like you wanted.  The tips of your fingers caress his and you cradle his hand in one of yours while the other touches each mark that you have steadily become familiar with. 

“I’d need to know one thing first,” you tell him, bending quietly over your hands and his hands between the two of you.

“Mmh.”  His field flows out and ebbs with the answering roll you return.

“Why do you crave submission?”

When he lifts his helm, he does it in a tilt that has you leaning forward, turning your face to watch him.  The two of you are dueling with purposed gazes and gentle breaths.  Vents cycle and you are drawing warm air that he has already filtered through his vents.   You watch him as he struggles with retorts, while he keeps himself from the gentle – and true – accusation that you already know the answer.  You watch as he searches his whole lifetime for his reasons, as he relives the countless moments he has spent beneath another’s hands, another’s words, another’s will.

“I want the security,” he says.  His forehelm nudges against yours and you smile as he sighs, the tension spilling down into the weave of your fingers.  “I’ve had a whole life of displacement, uprising, and violence.”

“Yes,” you say, less like an affirmation, more like a hallowing.

“And I,” he joins in with your prayer, “I want to be small again.  I want to be nameless.”  He clutches your hands when you cradle his face.  His field surges hard with anguish and self-hatred and _need_.  “I want to suffer slowly and lose everything.”

You think if you let him go he would fall to his knees before you.  Or maybe he wouldn’t.  Maybe it’s just an impulse flitting around in the field that is both yours and his. Like the wish you let slip out that makes him gently pull the spec-lenses from your optics and set them aside.  He stares into you and you see the slow rust and decay of the homeworld you both shared.  You see the guttering sparks of countless generations of soldiers who believed.  You see him crowned atop it all with his hands full of ash, and a newborn world rising up like a great wave to swallow him down.

“I think I can do that for you,” you say, soft as distant starlight. 

He drinks the words straight from your lips.

Carefully, you keep him.  You stroke your thumbs against his cheeks and stroke your fingers under his jaw and stroke your lips against his open mouth.  His energy pushes at you like it’s trying to steal between your plating and burrow into your chassis to hide.  His tongue wets your first kiss and you taste it, curious and wanting.  Your spark spins.  Your hands hold him steadfast and his grip falls away from you because he is surrendering, right here, right now.   You smile with your lips around his tongue because you never expected to have such blinding affection for this mech.

“Pick a word for us,” you say to him once your kiss has broken and he is smiling at you.  He’s dazed, perhaps.  Breathless.  A little surprised.  You catch him laughing as some cognizance illuminates his deep-as-dark eyes.

“Echelon,” he says and you grin at him.

“You want to be nameless,” you continue and he nods, remembering his own words.  His optics slide closed and he leans against your palm just so.  “Nameless and mine.”

“Yes.”  He tilts his helm back when you lift his chin and stroke down the cables of his neck

“Then I will call you my own.  My own and nothing else.”

“Yes.”  Rapturous….

“We will work you up slowly,” you tell him, standing so that you may bridge that almost negligible space and sit astride his lap as you touch him.  “We will start small, with easy tasks and short sessions, and see how you fare.  I will decide what you need based on how you handle what I give you.”

“Yes….” 

He wants to put his hands on your hips and lean back until he crashes into your berth.  He won’t – he’s already wondering what rules you’ve made for him.  He won’t risk displeasing you even though you haven’t spoken of rules in the slightest.  You can’t tell if it makes you adore him or pity him. The choice is easy and you pick adoration because you won’t pity him.  Not now, anyway. You have to learn whether you may or may not.

“I will be your only,” you tell him as you guide his helm forward again.

“My only,” he repeats, obediently, and you kiss his whispering lips to praise him. 

And then you forget to stop kissing him because the pretense of this scene that isn’t actually a scene falls away.  He wraps his arms around you and pulls you tight against him and kisses you deeply with his hands on your spinal strut and his field blessing you over and over again with gratitude.

_Thank you.  Thank you, thank you, for sharing yourself with me.  Thank you for giving me this chance.  Thank you for understanding.  Thank you.  Thank you, thank you._

You hear each one as clearly as if he were whispering it in your audial.  And then he presses his lips to the side of your helm and says it all again and you kiss his face and you kiss his neck and you kiss his fingertips and his palms and his mouth again because he is warm on the inside and you’re hungry for that heat.

You’ve never been so hungry…. 


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hoooo okay. Aight, well, I just started taking up fic commissions but before I really got working on those, I wanted to at least finish up this chapter that I've been working on. So, yeah, it's possible you might not see many frequent updates for this fic for a while because of that.
> 
> Until then, thank you so much for your patience. I really really like writing this fic a whole hell of a lot and I love all the feedback I'm getting from you guys, it makes my day, really! I hope you like what's to come. Updates might be delayed but I promise you I'm still sticking with this story. It's too good to let go. Thanks again, guys.
> 
> -Bec

Megatron

You have never liked pirates.  Ever.  Even when you were hellbent on conquest and taking every little bit you could get, you still didn’t like pirates.  Pirates are mostly just annoying.  Unpredictable and unscrupulous.  All this to say that your disdain has not cooled over the millennia and you feel entirely justified in deviating the _Lost Light’s_ course in order to vindictively chase after the stealth vessel _Silver Shadow_.  Luckily for you, most of the crew shares your sentiments on the matter after said pirates rammed the _Lost Light_ and managed to ransack a good portion of the rear cargo bay.  At least a fourth of your company sustained injury either from the initial impact or the efforts of driving the ship away.  Rung being one among the injured numbers was in no way the reason you made the decision to chase after the bandits.  But it was the reason you personally slagged the scrap out of the captain of the _Silver Shadow_ when you finally caught up.  You refrained from killing him.

Rung chuckles at you when you tell him and reaches out to pat your folded hands.

“Thank you,” he says, because he knows.  It’s amazing how much he knows. It’s _astounding_ how comfortable you are with it.

“I know where my priorities lie,” you assure him as you lean forward in the chair that you dragged next to his berth in the medbay.  The collision had thrown him from where he was standing and into the corner of table that cut right through his side.  Fortunately, the damage was easily repaired and there was no monumental damage to Rung’s internals.  The patch weld was a short surgery that was complete by the time you returned from the _Silver Scrapheap_.  You regaled Rung with the account of your conquest as soon as he was online and lucid.

“In a medical berth, perhaps?” he supposes, the faintest flush of pink on his cheeks. 

You blink.  Incredible…. You can’t believe him.  You can’t believe you’re going to play along with this.

“Perhaps,” you say gently, letting your vocalizer dip into lower, purring registers.  His hand smacks over his mouth in an instant but you still hear him giggling behind it.  Without his specs, his optics are twinkling a crystalline blue.  Your laughter is silent but it still shakes your shoulders as you smile at him.  It’s so foolishly indulgent and almost disgustingly cliché the way you go about it: the two of you playing at flirting in public, like younglings.  It’s nice….

It’s nice to actually be playful with a lover.  You’re surprised by how easily it comes to you.

And then you look up and see Rodimus on the next berth over, gaping at the both of you like slugs are flopping out of your mouths with every word.  Your grin is snuffed and your delight shrinks away in the face of your displeasure.

“Repairing well, Rodimus?” you ask him blandly.  He peers at you like he thinks you’re attempting some sort of mind trick on him.  And then yipes when First Aid reengages the neural connections to his knee and knocks it a few times for reflex testing.

“He’ll be fine,” First Aid says briskly and then moves on down the line of gurneys without another word. Rodimus groans aloud and shoves himself off the berth with the intention of excusing himself from the medbay.  He promptly heaves over on his newly-repaired knee and smashes his face into the wall.

“You idiot!” First Aid cries and you look back at Rung.

“Can we leave? I’ll carry you if you can’t walk,” you say, nudging his field with yours like a sparkling tugging on their sire’s hand.  You end up smiling again when he nods and takes the hand you’ve offered with a quietly pleased grin.

“You and Rodimus are getting along better,” he says as you escort him down the hallway.  He loops his arm through yours and exerts his weight against you with every step on his left side.  His hip rubs against your thigh every now and then.  Your arm goes around his waist.

“I am choosing to believe that you think that while at the same time disregarding it entirely,” you inform him and drink in the sound of his laughter.  Echoing faintly through the sound of repairs being made to the cargo bay, the crew shouting at each other over the rattle of rivet guns and sledgehammers ringing against the patch plates.  You’ll join them shortly.

“Thank you for accompanying me,” Rung says.  You take small steps for him.  “I don’t know why it is, but I’ve always found leaving the medbay by myself after a procedure rather lonesome.”

You turn the idea over a few times in your processor since it’s honestly something you’ve never considered before. 

“I suppose,” Rung continues, “I become used to the care and it bereaves me to suddenly be shunted back out, fully functional, and be expected to attend to myself once again.”

“You like the attention?” you ask.

“I like to think of myself as a rather self-sufficient mech,” he says with a small smile on his lips.  “I am good at what I do and prefer to handle my problems on my own.  It is nice, though, to be the focus of some devoted attention.”

You grin.  Well, that explains a lot.

“What else do you like?”

He glances up at you and follows right along the path you have laid for him.

“Being needed,” he says.  “Helping in ways that no one else can. The sacredness of keeping someone’s trust.”  The two of you reach his habsuite door and he reaches to enter the lock code.  “The fathomless intimacy that occurs when I am given the gift of control….”

You take the initiative to place him onto his berth yourself and he gives a startled laugh when your hands wrap around his waist and lift.  Next to him, you sit, making yourself comfortable without permission.  You don’t need to ask, not for this.  Rung was the one who insisted that the delineations between what is a scene and what isn’t should be clearly indicated.  You have verbal cues and silent gestures that either of you can use as you like and refuse if you’re not willing to participate.  Everything else, outside that, you both agreed, was freely shared.  Including your impulse to climb into his bed and his decision to drape over your lap.  You’re almost like any other normal couple.

He’s running a little hot – cooling fans clicked on after the exertion of making the trip down the hallway.  He can rest now; you’ll keep him company.  Softly, you touch the cables of his neck, petting in slow strokes, back and forth.  You thumb at his cheek and watch him blink…one gentle shutter and then another…and then his optics close.

“Would you mind it if I slept like this?” he asks.  “Not very hospitable of me.  I had thought we could talk….”

“We can talk any time,” you tell him.

“I wanted to express my empathies about the delay in our plans,” he sighs and an incredulous grin drops onto your face. You stifle laughter.  “Four days seems of waiting doesn’t sound unreasonable.  But each time I think about it, I feel like I’ve been slighted.”

“Positively puerile of you,” you say and his giggles spill across the plating of your thigh in little huffs.

“The beginning is always the most exciting,” he explains in a sleepy exhale.  “I might pride myself on my patience, but even I have those things that I anticipate rather enthusiastically.”

“If you recharge now, it’ll be a little closer to the day.”  You let him grasp your fingers and pull them around to his face so he can kiss your hand.  “Rest.  I’ll wake you when it’s time to refuel.”

He turns over until he’s on his back, looking up at you.  Primus, his optics are bewitching.  You swallow down the urge to kiss him and don’t bother keeping your fingers from rubbing over his spark, where he has your hand pressed gently beneath both of his.  You track his gaze, wonder what he sees….

“Aren’t you afraid?” he asks, looking straight into your optics.  His spark strobes steadily under your touch.

“Do I have anything to fear from you?” you ask in return.

He smiles, glancing down at himself with a shake of his head.

“I’m not very dangerous.”

“Perhaps you’re not physically imposing but I have trusted you with something I haven’t trusted to many.”  His hands tighten on yours.  “That is a decision I made for myself. I admittedly was never so affectionate with any of my past Dominants.  But that is past.  I abide by my own choices, always.”

He turns again, pushing his nose against your abdominals and bringing your hand up to tuck under his chin.  You can feel the warmth as energon flushes his cheeks.  Inside your chassis, your spark feels like it’s swelling, making your chestplates tight.  This mech is absolutely dangerous….

* * *

 

Rung

Megatron is forbidden from participating in any sparring matches.  It was one of the stipulations included in his permission to stay aboard the _Lost Light_. Under no circumstances is he allowed to violently engage with any of the crew for any purpose.

He still watches the matches.  Never takes bets but always knows who will win, so Swerve will sometimes stick close and try to look casual while waiting for Megatron to announce who will take the fight. You find it amusing because Megatron doesn’t ever actually announce the inevitable victor aloud.  He’ll murmur it in your audial sometimes, though.  You’re waiting for the day when Swerve starts asking _you_ who he should put his money on.

A few of the more audacious mechs will ask for Megatron’s opinions on their form; he always answers them honestly.  His judgment has been met with sober acknowledgement at times, and at others, dismissive gestures and scoffing.  Megatron is never bothered by it.  Most days he barely even reacts save a shrug of his broad shoulders.  And when the training room clears out and there’s no one left to even potentially jeopardize his adherence to his residency agreement, he fights on his own.  He pummels training dummies and spars holo-simulations until his fans strain.  There was an occasion when you’ve met up with him after one of these independent spars and found his hands bleeding.  He wouldn’t let you patch him up but did take the cube of energon you offered.  He told you that the wounds were liberating.

In the contract that the two of you outlined together, you left room for him to specify the extent and particulars of what pain he was willing to endure and he returned the draft with a list that covered the whole page in two neat columns.

“I’m not actually a masochist,” he told you, wily grin like he was offering you a riddle to untangle.  You snorted in amusement because there’s no challenge to a mystery you’ve already solved.

“It’s not the pain but the application of power you want,” you postulated.  His conceding gesture was elegant and casual and you kept thinking about how you really enjoyed kissing his hands.

Your charge is to give Megatron what he needs.  You have it all spelled out for you in writing that he has given you himself and that you have agreed to.  Objectively, this is enormous.  Anyone would think so.  You as Dominant to Megatron…. You chuckle to yourself as you think about it and watch him continuously attack the simulations thrown at him.  Anyone would think you out of your processor, too.  You think you’re going to remember these days for the rest of your life, no matter what comes of them.

He’s been pushing himself hard today, again.  Not even three steps into the room and you can already feel how the heat he’s putting off is warming the room a whole four degrees from the regulated temperature just outside in the hallway.  Condensation flings off of his plating with every punch he delivers. You let your field exhale gently, just a small sigh to let him know you’re there.  You know better than to startle any mech when they’re this deep.  You take a seat on one of the side benches and watch him, wait for him.

The set finishes.  He cycles one deep vent and glances towards you, grinning when he spots the cubes of energon you’re holding.  His smile is your favorite.  It’s slight and you have watched it evolve for you over the course of your contact with him.  You put down the cubes and lift one hand, crooking two fingers at him, beckoning.  He freezes.  You hadn’t planned this.  He thought he still had two more days.  And while, yes, the scene you _had_ planned is still taking place, you’re feeling mischievous.  And ravenous.  Your spark skidders while you watch his optics focus on yours like a crossbow bolt being leveled at your intentions.  For a split second you wonder if he’s just going to give you some pitying look and try to cover a scoff by turning away.

Then you remember how desperately he confessed to you before.  A thrill runs through you as all your doubts evaporate.  He hasn’t even moved yet.

His steps are efficient but without impatience. With each one closer, you can see the sharpness fading from his optics; they darken to a docile burgundy.  His knees are as close as they can be to your pedes without actually touching them.  The ship hums around the both of you as it always does and there’s silence save for the long pulls of his ventilating and the roar of his cooling fans still trying to regulate his temperature after that strenuous workout.  Drops of condensation speckle his faceplates.  Against the hot, thrumming lines of his neck your fingers are like coolant and he hisses softly when you stroke along his throat.  Up…and down again, you caress him.  He breathes slowly; you watch the slight expansion of his plating from his protoform with each intake.

“Are you thirsty?” you ask him gently, slipping your touch beneath the angles of his jaw to tilt his face up towards you.

“Yes, my only,” he whispers, in one rapturous exhale.  You feel it rush through you like an electrical surge and fall soft as ash on every neural sensor, tingling like overcharge.  This is when you belatedly remember just how affected you are by wholehearted submission.  Especially when your submissive could snap you like a glass rod but is instead breathing your name like you ignited the heavens with every star.

“Open your mouth for me now....”

He does it slowly, giving you the pleasure of enjoying the sheen of oral solvents on his tongue and the wetness of his lower lip, the glint of his dentae, the points still sharp.  He was a monster once.  He was a terror, a nightmare.  He’s waiting patiently on his knees for you to feed him.  You stroke his cheek and put a gentle kiss against his forehead. 

Cube in hand, you hold it to his lips and tilt it up with the utmost delicacy.  You’ve done this before; romantic as it might seem to some to feed another this way, it requires a good amount of precision lest you make a mess or make your partner choke.  You hold him steady with your hand beneath his chin as his open mouth fills with bright pink energon.  You watch it pool in the dip in his tongue and fill the spaces between his teeth and his cheeks.

“Swallow,” you tell him, thumbing the corner of his mouth where the tiniest drop slipped out.  He obeys, optics shuttering gently for that one second, before he breathes again and meets your gaze like a dying mech getting his last look before the light goes.  “Drink as much as you need,” you murmur, and watch his lips close around the rim of the cube, sipping steadily as you tip it for him.  One swallow at a time, taking deep draughts to fill up his parched intake.  He finishes one cube and you disperse its field as you stroke at his helm.

The next one you pour right into the palm of your hand.  His optics are drops of fire as he watches the fuel fill the cup of your fingers.  And when you hold your hand in front of his lips, he waits.  He stares at the shallow ripples his breaths push across the surface of your handful, glossa wetting his bottom lip in a soft stroke.  He waits.  He’s so good….

“Go ahead,” you say.

His helm bends over your hand and you surrender the privilege of watching his face.  Instead, you pay careful attention to every touch of his mouth. 

He still does not clutch at you for balance – his hands remain lax at his sides – but his bottom lip perches against the side of your palm and you can feel his tongue press softly to your derma.  He drinks what he can, laps up the little left over.  He ducks beneath your hand to suck away the drops that have leaked through your fingers.  His mouth and cheeks are smeared with fuel.  Your fingertips stroke along his bottom lip and he chases after the touch with his tongue, his breath hot against your hand.

Again and again, you fill your hand and he drinks deep of every offering until not a single drop is left.  He cleans away every stain and smudge and you whisper to him all the while.  “Good,” you tell him, “You please me so.”  By the end of it all, his intakes are turning over heavily, as if what he has done here on his knees took just as much effort as the sparring that came before it.

His helm in your hands again, you tilt his face towards you.  If there was ever such depth to mech’s gaze, you have found its darkest, most luxurious fathoms: here, with Megatron looking into your eyes as if there will never be another day without your leave. 

“You’ve done well,” you murmur to him, and lean in to take your indulgence, his kiss.  “Rest now.”

His body relaxes.  He leans in against your knees.  You cradle his helm in your lap and one large, mighty hand curls, trembling, around your ankle in a loose grip.  His engines muffle to a gentle purr.  His cooling fans slowly dial down.  You smile.   All improvised, sure.  But for a first time, you think that you’ve managed to lay a very good foundation here. 

Because, in all, you simply want to give him exactly what he needs.


End file.
